mistletoe | no one expects the spanish inquisition (Reply)

I've commented in a couple of places about Pain in the Heart but I want to say a few things of my own as well about the whole farrago.

This is all based on just one viewing as I will find it hard to look again.

First what I liked.

The acting was generally very good. Tamara Taylor in particular was very realistic and almost got back to her role of I'm the head honcho; everything goes through me.
TJ Thyne was also just understated enough to leave you guessing what his motives were.
The raid on Gormagon's lair was pretty chilling in its execution though I do have another comment to make on that.

What I enjoyed though not for the right reasons

Booth relaxing in the bath in typical manly pursuits then apparently forgetting there is a woman in the room and standing up. The wrong reason for enjoying it? Well the usual fannish omg David is naked!!! What I should have thought: Booth wouldn't do that; he's coy with Bones and would probably have put his comic over his manly bits and got all flustered. What I was supposed to think: these two are so in lurve they're just like a married couple.
Booth being all why was I the one to get hit? I didn't do anything. The wrong reason for enjoying it? Booth being hit by Bones hee hee. What I should have thought Booth would be hurt emotionally by such treatment by someone he has invested so much of himself into, making her more human. What I was supposed to think: these two are so in lurve they're just like a married couple.
The whodunnit element. The wrong reason for enjoying it? So was it Jack, or Sweets? Please let it be Sweets. What I should have thought: God this is typical television misdirection. What I was supposed to think: These are main characters in the show, would we really do that to our lovely viewers.

But what I hated with a fiery passion:

Zach? No way. Talk about coming out of left field. And I've read a number of justifications as to why it is perfectly logical (scuse pun) that it was Zach - looking for a father figure; operating in a clinical, logical way; the strike meant we didn't get all the back story. Well if that's the case they should have handled it better in the time they had. All right they wouldn't want the actor to commit to a few episodes in the next season just to dump him, but they should have rather than end in this ill-considered way. Not to labour the point but they totally ignored the clues they gave us in Widow's Son in the Windshield and Knight on the Grid namely the widow's son. Zach is not a widow's son; nor does Zach have a history of cruelty or sadistic behaviour. Nor is he a mindless chump who blindly follows the path of logic even when Brennan isn't there to reel him in. Finally, can the pursuit of logic be a motive for murder? I don't think even Zach would pursue that path without question. And then to play the insane card as a defence. He wouldn't have saved Hodgins then. It wouldn't have been logical to continue the experiment. There are too many holes. Of course, it was Zach who pointed out the camera in the vault in The Knight on the Grid so there's your foreshadowing.
The way they dealt with Booth getting shot. Yes let's just ignore the close death scenario we had at the end of Wannabe in the Weeds and treat it all as a jolly jape. At no point did I believe that Booth was dead. The setup in the lab was just wrong, unconvincing. And the reason for pretending to be dead was just pathetic. Finally, Brennan's reaction said to me she had made absolutely no progress in making relationships work. Just two weeks ago she was letting her heart rule her head and her father walked free from a murder charge. She used Booth to achieve that. Now she might as well have had no space between what is happening now and her actions in the Body in the Lake at the very beginning. No connection to Booth whatsoever. To me she is more insane than Zach. Especially accepting Sweets' rationale for why he didn't tell her. I don't think her 'don't treat us like lab rats' aside was said out of care for Booth's feelings.
Sweets and everything he said. Get rid of this character; he is lowering the tone. I cannot accept this character as either a realistic psychiatrist or a profiler. All he does seems to be designed to provoke Booth and Brennan like a naughty school boy bating his teachers. Enough!
David getting away with forgetting he is Seeley Booth and not David Boreanaz on a talk show pontificating about this being a show about relationships. It shouldn't be; just because he doesn't understand all the techno-babble doesn't mean to say it should be ignored in favour of comic cuts and verbal sparring. He is not Cary Grant and she is not Katherine Hepburn.
The voice over accompanying the Gormogon raid. It was scifi crap. A blindfolded Zach knew the address and that the house had a blue door? Tripe.
As for the finale it did not jibe. I cannot believe the joking reminiscences over Zach's collection of memorable things. Where was the picture Angela drew for his Christmas present in The Body in the Fallout Shelter? It was of his family; probably featured his father. Huh.

I feel sorry this was the end of Zach and disappointed on behalf of Eric Millegan. This character allowed Brennan plausibly to be out of the lab because he could conduct the science required for the show to deserve its name. Where will this leave Hodgins and the lab rivalry? He will be left merely with his pursuit of Angela and we don't need two romantic entanglements in one show. If they have to bring in another character to replace Zach what was the point of getting rid of him in the first place? This will require a deal of ret-conning to satisfy fans who are invested in the show as a procedural rather than intermittent murders interrupting the jolly giggles of promoting the ignorance of the characters about each others worlds.

I thought Bones was better than that. Apparently not. It just took a writers strike for a programme to revert to the norm of implausible character development. While we have seen much of Brennan's trauma resolved, Booth has been left behind as far as his character's trauma is concerned. Much of the baggage he carries has been ignored; why was no family member at the funeral for the sake of realism?

The feel of the episode was such that I spent most of the time expecting it to be some sort of dream sequence born of Booth's injuries. When it turned out to be real it just left me with a nasty taste. Yes, key characters can be dropped but it has to be in a more convincing, cathartic way than this. There was no catharsis.

I really enjoyed the first 8 episodes up to Christmas. I thought the dynamics were developing; the arcs were intriguing and the acting was good. That all disappeared in the hurried finishing off of the series to meet deadlines.

I will spend my summer worrying that the dumbing down line Hodgins came out with will be the way the show goes. Let's hope they realise the error of their ways.